Countdown

Lately I feel like all I am doing is counting down the days until Vivienne turns one, and not necessarily in a good way. I'm super nervous and sad about it and I can't figure out why. This stage of her life is so incredible and we are having such a blast. I thought to myself yesterday, while spending two whole hours browsing ALONE at Target, "wow, we made it, and we're in one piece!"... and I felt this calm come over me while thinking about Vivienne and how happy and secure and beautiful she is. And I thought, all I have to do is keep doing whatever it is I've been doing, year after year, for the rest of my life. And she should turn out pretty good. Just take it a year at a time. I can do this.

You may be thinking, what? Is it that hard? Having Vivienne and caring about her and for her is not the hard part. That's the easiest thing in the world for me to do. In fact, I had no idea how natural and easy that part would be. It's just that, at one point in time there was no Vivienne. And then the Mister and I thought to ourselves, "hmm, we have a good idea, let's try for a baby!" And then three months later I was pregnant and there was this thing with a heartbeat, INSIDE me. And then, 40 weeks later there she was, all slimy and wet, with her big googly eyes looking up at me while she was flipping the rest of the room off! Don't you see -- there was no person, and then we MADE A PERSON. I have spent a year trying to wrap my head around this idea, it just blows my mind. It is the biggest responsibility there is and the more she heads away from infancy and into toddler-hood, the more I realize all of the things I am not going to be able to shelter her from. This past year has been full of Vivi being an innocent little babe, all coos and giggles. Now she's turning into a tyrant with actual opinions!

Anyway, internet, all of this rambling is just my incoherent way of saying Vivienne is turning one in 6 days, less than a week!